1 good, 2 bad from Coventry 4-1 Newcastle

Newcastle United were embarrassed 4-1 by Coventry City on Monday night. The newly promoted side somehow engineered a huge victory which left many of a Black and White persuasion deeply frustrated at a second shellacking on the road in a row.

Performances like that need to be quickly cut out if we are to have a decent season, especially considering all the grounds we have yet to visit this campaign.

Here’s my one good and two from the game:

Bad: Missing guilt edge chances

Pardo (oh dear, but not terminal), Osula, and Willock (should he really be a key player at this stage of his Newcastle career?) amongst others were all guilty of fluffing their lines from good positions inside the 18-yard box, and our supposed striker Wissa (who should not be playing in the 10) never looked like scoring.

Considering Wissa was decent on international duty with a goal and an assist for DR Congo, his ghost-like performance was symptomatic of a man who looks completely out of place in this United squad by virtue of just not being good enough to be anything other than a poacher.

Murphy offered nothing, Barnes and Toure, when he came on, were wasteful, shooting when a pass would’ve been the better the option. And the fact that our only goal was from a massively out-of-form Botman raking in a long-range strike says everything you need to know about the quality of United’s finishing on the night.

And that is a massive concern because if you cannot finish your chances, there’s only one end of the table you’ll be fighting at at the end of the season.

Bad: More mistakes and so sloppy defensively

It’s been a common theme of the season so far, but defensive mistakes are costing us too many points already. Joelinton, on his return, catapulted into the top four of that statistic after last night’s shocker by virtue of only playing 32 minutes. Hornicek’s early double mistake was also a killer for our game plan, gifting the home side a penalty in the opening five minutes.

The general sloppiness in defensive positions against Leeds and Coventry contributed to back-to-back 4-1 defeats away from home, which is something that, despite our generally awful form away from home, was something we never experienced under Eddie Howe. Even Bournemouth’s second came via an awkward deflection off Thiaw.

But the current 4-2-3-1 formation, which often leaves us a man down in there against most sides who play 4-3-3 before the game has even started, and the personnel, is clearly leaving us desperately open at the back, despite sides not really creating masses of chances against us.

Throw in Hall’s penalty concession against Liverpool that cost us two points, and those sorts of moments are really going against us right now. But the defensive errors for me are all symptomatic of the midfield’s lopsidedness.

It’s often just Nico in the centre on his own. There’s huge gaps which opponents can exploit easily, and this is against opposition like Leeds and Coventry, who are nowhere near the greatest quality in this league, yet still combined to fire eight past us. 

Good(ish): Creating those missed chances

Whilst it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, United had a better xG than their opponents on Monday night, showing that the chances were being created. Nineteen total shots with six on target is a decent return, but the quality of finishing was diabolical, despite some nice build-up play.

Perhaps, if we can shore up the defence, we can have a solid season by virtue of creating a decent number of chances, as the lads did get into some decent attacking positions. But the manager needs to start picking his best team, as that side that started the game on Monday was simply not it.

Jassile commented after the match that he was not able to make changes earlier due to load management for those players returning from injuries, but, for example, a right side of Miley and Murphy at this level is not going to work, especially with Miley being played out of position in that role.

It was also strange to me that Steur got no minutes when the game seemed to be set up for him with the space in midfield. That said, the lad is still very young, so perhaps we should expect him to be in and out of the side.

Anyway, Villa next, that’ll be a tough game.

Keep the faith. HWTL